Learning communities on Facebook

I have a question: Can we turn a fun social networking site into learning environment? Personally, I think  we cannot or we shouldn't. We have a separate space in life: social space is for fun and connection to others. I might confront some of the scholars by stating my personal opinions. An article Using the Facebook group as a learning management system: An exploratory study by Wang et al. (2001) claimed that students were contended with Facebook functioning as LMS. The procedure of the study was basically setting up the Facebook group for students to put up announcements, resources for sharing, weekly tutorials and online discussions at a teacher education institute in Singapore. Although we know that Facebook has been a hit in social media, I think its use for the educational purposes are limited. Students might be engaged in discussions and receive the announcements. These are basically how one can plan. For receiving resources, it is rather limited. One can post videos or weblinks but not pdf files or Word documents that you might also need to share. Privacy is another consideration to taken into account. How autonomous and public can a teacher be in organizing the structure of the learning environment? More importantly, it does not make students learn by doing. Imagine that a language instructor puts up a weblink and asks students to check the information on the site and join the discussion. Do you think students learn the information for the sake of the common social platform they share? I am quite suspicious to claim that fun private social networking can be also utilized as learning environment. Yes, it can be regarded as learning environment for not specific content matters but social matters. As a Facebook user, I get informed about the news, funny video clips, youtube videos, an extract from a magazine or a column or review from a newspaper. If you count all these as construction of learning, I do agree I am learning socially and Facebook can contribute to my learning to be updated. The bottom line is this argument here: if users are obliged to use the social platform for a specific educational reason, where have the key elements of learning such motivation, learner autonomy and preferences gone?

Reference:

Wang, Q., Woo, H. L., Quek, C. L., Yang, Y. & Liu, M. (2011). Using the Facebook group as a learning management system: An exploratory study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(3), 428–438.